


Hope and Honesty

by AriesOnMars



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: After her death on Mortis Ahsoka Tano comes back as an eldritch creature, Ahsoka Tano is a goddess, Anakin Skywalker dies on Mortis and Ahsoka Tano resurrects him, Character Is Resurrected But Came Back Wrong, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 14:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15708897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriesOnMars/pseuds/AriesOnMars
Summary: Ahsoka Tano is the Light on Mortis, but her companion isn't entirely sure of who, or what, he is.





	Hope and Honesty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



In the beginning it was only darkness. A cold, constant darkness with the feeling that there was once more, there was once light, there was once warmth, and that was what made the darkness all the more deep and icy.

 _I can’t breathe_.

A self-centered first thought, but an honest one. Honesty wasn’t always pretty—in fact it often wasn’t.

 _I want to breathe_.

Greed, simple greed pushing one to strive for more than they have. Perhaps more than they deserve.

Even so he struggled to against the cold and the darkness. Light came to him slowly, but instead of chasing the darkness away it only served to make the shadows deeper. Color came after, but he was in no position to appreciate it. And then, finally, he gasped sharply and air filled him. It tasted like life, greenery and blooming flowers and heavy with moisture. He breathed deeply and coughed.

“Are you alright now?”

It was the first sound to usher in thousands more, and the sweetest. He looked around in a daze, confused and eager to know more, and he saw her above him. He cared about color now. Bright blue eyes watching him, indigo and white tendrils so close to his face where she was leaning over him, orange skin decorated with markings so white they glowed, umber lips parted to let him see lovely white fangs that he would have adored to see dripping red.

He understood beauty then.

“I’m alive,” he managed to rasp out. Selfish first words that he didn’t try to soothe her first, but she smiled at him all the same. Her hands stroked over his face, she was so warm—no, not warm. She was hot. She was searing heat. It made him burn but he didn’t care.

“You’re so cold,” she murmured to him.

“Am I?” he asked. He didn’t know if he was cold or if she was hot, but it hardly mattered. He reached up to return the gesture, his left hand against her cheek. His skin was so pale against hers, where she glowed with warmth and beauty he was pale, grayish, deathly. Even so she leaned into the touch and his heart went to her so easily it should have scared and alarmed him. Finally he asked, “Who are you?”

“My name is Ahsoka Tano.”

His thumb was on the corner of her mouth and he felt the words as much as he heard them. Her smile faded and she frowned a little at him, but even that didn’t darken her appearance to him.

“Do you know who you are?”

He thought for a while, his fingers traced over her markings slowly. He was far more interested in touching her than in answering, but finally he did, and he sighed, “No.”

“That’s alright,” she said, but even he could hear the lie in her voice. “Just rest, and it’ll come to you.”

 

* * *

 

Days came and went at Ahsoka’s whim. As he watched her and he watched the plants grow and wither he compared everything to her or himself. In the light everything was so lovely, the grasses and flowers like jewels in the light, every one bright and vibrant and full. As the darkness came they grew dull and rotted away to feed the next generation when Ahsoka came by again. She was the light, the day, the life in this place, and when Anakin looked into a still river one day he knew what he was too. He was dull and gray, when he bruised the marks would rise up dark and ugly and take far too long to fade, his eyes were marked with heavy shadows. The only brightness to him were his eyes, golden and shot with red, but he liked Ahsoka’s eyes so much better.

Finally, one day, he was no longer content to let her order the planet to rotate and he reached out to feel if he could as well. It touched his mind like liquid ice, twisted around his sanity, and slipped into his veins. He felt power, he felt invincible, and Mortis moved. The plants died around them as night came crashing down, and the only thing still bright and beautiful was Ahsoka. The white of her montral and lekku glowed, her markings shone brighter than the stars, and he loved how she looked surrounded by the darkness but untouched by it—surrounded by _his darkness_.

“Are we the only ones here?” he asked. He didn’t ask many questions, but he hadn’t wrested control from her before now. Although he suspected she’d given it to him more than anything else.

“We are,” she answered. “We didn’t used to be. There were three beings on Mortis before us, a Father and his Children.”

“Where are they now?”

“Dead,” Ahsoka said with her bright eyes downcast. “The Daughter is entombed, the Son is buried, and the Father burned on a pyre.”

“I killed the Son,” he said. It wasn’t a question, he knew it. Ahsoka looked up at him, hesitant and hopeful, and she came closer.

“And he killed you. I brought you back, Mas—” she cut herself off suddenly. “Do you know who you are?”

“Anakin Skywalker,” he said. That was harder to remember, it seemed much less important than the Son’s death or Ahsoka. “He hurt you, he killed you, and I was so _angry_ , even after you came back, and I…”

Ahsoka came to him then and wrapped her arms tight around him. He held her, and now that he knew her, could remember her, he knew she wasn’t quite right anymore. Her horns had grown and split, her lekku had done the same, her markings had changed to where they resembled a piece of art instead of anything that could have grown naturally. No Togruta would recognize her as kin now, just like no Human would look at Anakin and know he was once one of them. But she was still his Ahsoka, his Snips, even if he wasn’t sure she was his padawan anymore.

“It’s ok. It’s going to be ok,” Ahsoka whispered against his chest. Oh, kindness and beauty and lies to soften the ugly truth, that’s what she was now. She was light that would shimmer and twist on the sand dunes until it looked like there was water, just far enough away you could reach it if you ran, but it was never there.

He kissed the top of her head, something he wouldn’t have done before, but now it felt right, “Where’s Obi-Wan?”

“I made him leave,” she whispered. “I’m different, and you’re so much different, and I was so worried this place would try to force him to be like us too. The ship’s gone, we can’t leave.”

Anakin moved to hold her closer and he pulled the glove from his right hand awkwardly. Pieces of metal fell out of it, and delicate machinery poured from it when he tipped his glove over. The prosthetic was destroyed. What was on his right arm now was something else, the fingers were too sharp, the skin—if it was even skin—completely black. It both had matter and substance, and at the same time it was nothing but a shadow, an illusion. It was the darkness within him, stripped of the flesh the rest of that churning blackness hid within. Anakin might have killed the Son but, like the Daughter when she willingly gave her life to Ahsoka, that ancient creature had left his mark on the one who had stolen his life away.

“I don’t know what to do,” Ahsoka admitted. The soft words shook Anakin from his thoughts and he looked to her again. His heart went to her, perhaps more now that he knew _who_ she was behind her beauty. She looked at his blackened hand and took it in hers without hesitation, without fear. It felt like he was holding fire when her orange fingers slid between his, but he embraced the searing pain and he held her hand gently.

“Neither do I,” Anakin said. “But we’ll find out.”

 

* * *

 

There is a mural in the hidden Temple on Lothal that has only rarely seen visitors. It depicts the Force as two beings, a woman and a man that lean on one another, her armored in white, and him robed in black. If one comes close to her they can see that her eyes are sapphires, her markings are diamonds, her armor and weapons are edged in silver. If one gives the same attention to him they won’t see anything so interesting, he is only paint and the heavy hood hides much of his face. The only thing of interest is his left hand, made in a pigment so dark that it swallows any and all light that might shine on it. They’ve never been defiled, no one has ever taken her precious stones or metals, and no one has ever scraped away his pigments and paint. Ever since the mural hidden in the ground shifted and changed so long ago they’ve been respected.

She is the Warrior, she is Hope, she is Light. She is the Wife and in her right hand she offers her sword.

He is the Priest, he is Honesty, he is Darkness. He is the Husband and in his left hand he offers nothing.

Together they offer Balance, and if one is willing to put their hand on the Wife’s sword and touch the Husband’s hand they offer more.


End file.
